grief Archives - Della Temple

Saying No to the Pity Party

25 November, 2015 — Posted in: Conscious Grieving Leave a Comment

For those of us who are grieving the death of a loved one, this season of merriment and celebration can be a difficult time. This month I’m sharing with you some ways that I’ve found to cope with grief during the holiday season. In this excerpt from Walking in Grace with Grief Meditations for Healing After Loss, I talk about being mindful of how the feelings of other people can affect your ability to grieve your own way.

Keeping Pity Energy at Bay

There are no “shoulds” about how to behave during times of loss. If you feel like laughing, then laugh. If you feel like crying, then cry. Forget what “they” say. You are in charge of your feelings. Use the Golden Sun Meditation (see chapter 3) to fill you with peace and comfort. If that means that you fill your golden sun with happiness, then do so. Do what is best for you. Be mindful of how you want this period of sorrow to unfold.

In addition, be mindful of when well-meaning friends and family inadvertently try to dump their grief in your lap. Yes, unfortunately it happens. As two people relate, they unconsciously exchange energy with one another. Underneath your friend’s encouraging words of love and support may be some suppressed feelings of guilt, abandonment, or pity. Of course your friend is not consciously aware of sending you these mixed messages—in fact, she or he would be horrified to discover they had! But it does happen. Part of being a conscious griever is understanding how to prevent these twinges of unresolved grief from encompassing you.

One of the most effective ways of doing this is to visualize your body surrounded by a protective coating of glass, Teflon, or some other impervious material. The purpose of this covering is to deflect these unintentionally distressing thoughts before they affect your ability to grieve your own way.

Healing Meditation: Keeping Pity Energy at Bay

Sit in meditation with your eyes closed and your feet flat on the floor. Feel your grounding cord connect you to the earth and your surrounding space fill with the energies of peace and stillness.
Breathe in and center, bringing all of your awareness into your body. Be in the center of your head, your peaceful meditative space. Breathe out and ground, releasing all tensions from your body as you allow them to move down the grounding cord to the center of the earth. Breathe in and center; breathe out and ground.
Now let’s design the protective coating for the energy space surrounding your body. You can change the coating every day during your daily meditation, so don’t worry that it has to be perfect. Experiment; that’s the joy. See what works for you.
Think about how you would like to prevent stray thoughts and feelings from affecting your ability to grieve your way. Sometimes I see a fine wire mesh surrounding my body. This permeable membrane allows my own scattered energies to come in but keeps out others. Other times I envision a platinum coating sealing my energy body from all outside influences. You might try out a bubble of glass or a protective coating of Teflon today, and pick something different tomorrow. You get to choose.
Now imagine this protective coating extending all the way around your body, above your head, and below your feet. Visualize it out in front of your closed eyes and allow yourself to feel safe and nurtured while encased in this protective coating. When someone thinks of you, his or her energy is coming your way, even from a long distance. Notice what happens to your protection bubble as it encounters outside energy. It may change color as it absorbs this energy, or the energy might just slide off the surface. Notice what you notice.
Set the intention that the protective coating will work for you all day, deflecting any well-meaning but unconsciously transferred pity, guilt, or grief from friends and family. Acknowledge that we all have issues that we are dealing with and that the only person you can heal is yourself. When you have the protection bubble set in place, open your eyes and come out of meditation.

Every day as part of your morning meditation, put a new protection bubble around your body. Know that it will work for you all day long by deflecting unwanted energy before it enters your space.

There are many more tools and meditations that I talk about in Walking in Grace with Grief Meditations for Healing After Loss. If you have a friend that is going through a tough time right now, you might consider sharing this blog post with them.

Thank You Rick

31 December, 2011 — Posted in: Conscious Grieving Leave a Comment

New Year’s Eve is always a time to reflect on the past and look forward to the new. As I look back on this year, my heart is filled with many different competing emotions. I will always remember 2011 as the year that my son Rick died. The coroner’s visit, the finality of death, and the knowledge that there is no such thing as a do-over in life are ever-present emotions cascading through my body. Car accidents happen and in just that flash; it’s all gone.

But I feel more. I feel a hologram of sorrow, grief, happiness, tears, laughter, grace, depression, despair, fits of joyousness, days of gratefulness, deep appreciation for the smallest of things, and most of all love. In big capital letters, LOVE.

Cocooned in the gentle caring of my husband and daughter, I have felt the outpouring of support from friends near and far. Most of all, I have felt Rick’s presence and the beams of radiating love that he sends my way.

Yes, I have been blessed. This terrible, terrible year, has also turned into one of my most precious. I will always look back and see the love. The grace. The beauty of people helping people. I will see the faces of my friends, as they ask, “What can I do for you”? I will hear the moms of sons silently saying, “Oh my God, that could have been my child!”, and then turning to give a smile, a kiss, or a hug to their precious baby, adolescent, or young adult.

All who knew Rick have all come away with an appreciation for life, for the smallest of small favors, gestures or smiles. I have become much more centered, soft, and patient. I am a wiser, more caring person. And, I have a deep sense of appreciation for how strong I really am! Yes, I have lost a son, but I am here and I am dealing with this. God doesn’t give you more than you can handle, and I know now, that I can handle quite a heavy load.

As I take my morning walks, down the forest road to the wide green gate, I often think of why I chose this path. I do believe that before we enter this world, we sit down with the “big guy from above” and map out our life. We decide on the lessons we want to tackle, the growth that we want to accomplish, the karma that we want to clean up. We decide all of that. It is not given to us; we take it on. We then gather those people most precious to us, those that will accompany us on the journey to Earth, and jointly we agree to become each other’s teachers and button pushers this time around. On those long morning walks, I reflect on what in the world I was thinking taking on the task of being a mother that loses a child! What lessons are mine to learn? Am I strong enough to follow this path?

After many walks and many meditations and many thoughtful discussions with my Spirit friends, I think that my lessons are two-fold. To be and to teach. I am much more in touch with my being-ness. I am not as inclined to take action, now I’m much more inclined to be something – patient, caring, compassionate, kind, or even angry. I know that life is not about doing, acquiring, having. It’s about being. That’s all we can take with us when we die. Our being, our essence, becomes the composite of all the lessons of this lifetime. That is what is important; To be.

So yes, I am grateful. I am full of appreciation for life, for life-after-life, for this awe-filled place we call home. To my friends, I say thank you, for giving me the opportunity to be more of who I was meant to be this lifetime. And to my son Rick, I bow in gratefulness. You have bestowed upon me a great blessing; you chose me to be your mom.

Thank you son, I love you. Namaste.

Grief and Thanksgiving

28 November, 2011 — Posted in: Conscious Grieving Leave a Comment

306498869_28ebd349e6_z It’s Monday of Thanksgiving week. We’re in town, so I went about my usual Monday errands.

But the world is in a different space than I. The grocery store was full of people, their shopping baskets brimming with pre-Thanksgiving staples, those non-perishables that you buy a few days before the big Whole Foods shopping trip.

We are not celebrating this year. Rick died eight months ago, and Megan is off in Europe traveling for the year. I’m trying to ignore the festivities. But the world does go on, doesn’t it?

My favorite once-a-year Thanksgiving first course is shrimp cocktail. Those big fat shrimp in a very spicy cocktail sauce always said “Thanksgiving” to me. So when a woman asked the butcher at Safeway, “May I have some shrimp, please?” my stomach clenched and I felt one of those waves of tears and anguish surge from deep within. I couldn’t get out of that store fast enough.

I came home, unpacked my enchilada ingredients and sat down to do a meditation. I wanted to clear out the grief and loss energy that I had accumulated while walking the aisles of Safeway.

I guess I didn’t dig deep enough because, that afternoon in the dentist’s chair, I almost came apart again. Of course, it’s natural to ask people what they are doing for the holiday – I always did it myself.

It never occurred to me that someone wouldn’t be celebrating Thanksgiving. I’m pretty sensitive in the weeks leading up to Christmas because I know lots of people don’t “do” that day. But Thanksgiving? I didn’t prepare myself for the impact of being asked what I had planned for the week. The hygienist, the dentist, the cashier, a second dentist who just stopped in to say hi, and, as I was walking (running?) out the door, the receptionist called out after me, “Have a great holiday.” All well-intentioned, sensitive people. But wow – it devastated me. I went home, grabbed the dog, and went for a walk around the lake to clear my head. I cried as I walked. I went down into the depths of “poor me” and wallowed as I walked.

I’m one that always wanted to host the big family gathering of 20. I dreamed that someday, between children and grandchildren and friends of children and grandchildren, I’d have enough family to do that. Even in the years that there were only four of us around the table, my story was that this was temporary and soon our ranks would swell. But the family has dwindled, and I need to put that dream aside. I cried and grieved not only the loss of Rick, but the loss of the story around the big multi-generational family gathering. Next year, when Megan is home, it will be only three around the table. Not exactly 20.

Grieving takes many shapes. And it has many layers. Today I cried about me and all my stories that are untrue. I have to let them go and accept what is. As Byron Katie says, “Who would you be without the story?”

Who would I be without the story that Thanksgiving is about a large family gathering? Who would I be without the story that it isn’t Thanksgiving if one of us is permanently missing? Who would I be without the story of turkey and stuffing and pies?

I thought about gratitude. Could I find at least some little thing to be grateful for? It took longer than I ever would have imagined getting to the place of saying, “Yes, I have room in my heart today for more than just grief.”

I have a daughter to love. I have a husband who adores me. I have friends to have a cup of tea with and pottery to keep my hands occupied. I have a home. I have a dog. I have freedom. I have food. I have love. I have so very much to be grateful for.

And who would I be without the story?

I’d be peaceful and grateful and in love with those people and things that love me.

Yes, I am truly blessed.

Crab Walking Through Grief: Letting Go

4 July, 2011 — Posted in: Conscious Grieving Leave a Comment

8476297402_35020e215f_z It’s hard work, this grieving.

It’s been almost four months since my son died, and I work at this grief every day. I’m trying hard not to stuff away my feelings because I know that causes dis-ease.

One of my good friends lost a son about 20 years ago, and, according to her husband, she never worked through the grief. She died some five years later from a hole in the heart. That was the honest to god medical diagnoses.

My former mother-in-law and sister-in-law, developed tumors, one in the breast and one in the stomach, after their daughter/sister died in a car accident. So I do know enough not to stuff all my grief.

And I know that I don’t have to heal those around me; although that is much more difficult to put into practice than I had originally thought.

Right after Rick died, I was concerned about how my daughter, my husband, and Rick’s best friend were processing this death. So I kept a keen ear open to what they said and a watchful eye on how they were reacting. And, I’ve kept up this vigilance towards them and with other friends close to Rick.

Everyone looked to me initially to see how I was holding up, and as they saw me deal with it fairly well, they found that they could too.

Now, while they may have bad moments now and then, everyone seems to be moving forward and aren’t stuck grasping for meaning or answers. So that’s good. But it’s left me without an outward focus.

Healing others, offering comfort to others, was healing to me and so very natural to do. Now, I’m the “last one standing,” as they say.

I work hard at not going into the would-a, should-a, could-a type of thoughts. I don’t allow myself to dwell on what would have been if he were still alive. I turn my thoughts to other things when I start to go down that path.

Staying that aware of my thoughts and re-focusing them when necessary is a lot of work. It certainly depletes my energy, but I know that I have many months ahead of me, so I must stay focused.

Yet everywhere I turn, every place I visit, I see him. I’ll be sitting on the porch, and my eye will catch upon the corner post and beam that he straddled like a monkey last summer when we were building the deck. I look at the kitchen counter and remember him cooking his famous pancakes in the morning – totally scruffy looking, unshaven, hat on backwards, smiling and having fun. I know soon, someday, I will be able to smile at those memories and even laugh out loud, but right now I still tear up and my heart breaks open each and every time. I turn away from the memory because I can’t yet allow it to penetrate my core.

And that means that I’m holding back on all my emotions. I’m afraid to feel anything fully as I’m not sure I can feel without opening myself up to the pain of this loss. I’m aware of this and trying to deal with it. I don’t want to wall off my heart as that too causes dis-ease.

But I’m missing the full experience of life right now. The pine/dirt/rock smell is not as soothing as it always has been and the flowers, not as sweet.

My energy is being used internally to keep the grief from getting the upper hand. I’m learning to be OK with letting go of the need to do some of the ordinary daily tasks. The “I should do this; I should do that,” keeps coming to the forefront of my thoughts. I push those “should” thoughts out, take a deep breath, acknowledge and validate the NOW, and “go within” for a moment to determine what’s the most healing thing I could do right this minute.

Spiritually, I’ve said good-bye to Rick so that he can move forward to his next adventure. That was particularly hard for me to do because I was not ready to let him go. I wanted to hold him close; thinking that if I let him go I would lose those special “Mom” feelings.

But now I know that letting go was also healing for me. I was trying to keep Rick in the present, in the NOW. I kept looking for something visceral, a touch, a smell, a smile. But that’s not where he is. He is, and always will be, a very huge part of the past, but he is not in my present, nor is he in my future.

That was quite a revelation for me. Healing, but hard. So all in all, I would say that I’m doing OK. I’m reflective; I’m writing, I’m doing a lot of energy work. I’m taking each day and moving forward – not backward – but sometimes sideways and then forward.

Maybe like a crab, two steps sideways and one step ahead, but I am moving forward.

Making Peace With What Is

24 June, 2011 — Posted in: Conscious Grieving Leave a Comment

Making peace with what is; not what could be, should be, or isn’t.

That’s what I’m working on today – and every day. Grief brings your life into focus, doesn’t it? Making peace with what is – being gratitude for all that life is today. The sunrise, the sunset, the beautiful people that make my life full of meaning and beauty. It’s the small things that make the difference.

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Being in the present moment and appreciating with gratitude all that I have, right here, right now, leaves me with a quiet sense of contentment.

I think when we yearn for peace, harmony and contentment what we are really striving for is something that is outside of ourselves.

If we just looked within through meditation, quiet contemplation or prayer, we would find IT.

Can you imagine what this world would be like if we all rejoiced for those things which we have?

Epictetus said it well:

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.

I will strive to remember the things I still have – and be in gratitude for my husband, my daughter, and the sweet, sweet memories I will always have of my son.